Answers

What are quiet hours for texting?

Federal TCPA rules bar marketing texts before 8am and after 9pm in the recipient's local time, and several state mini-TCPA laws run tighter windows on top of that. Quiet hours attach to the recipient's time zone, not yours, so a national list needs send scheduling that knows where each contact is. The rules apply to business texting on every channel, iMessage included.

The recipient-local detail is where programs slip: an 8pm send from the East Coast lands at 5pm in California and is fine, while a 10am blast from California reaches East Coast phones at 1pm and is fine too, but run either list in the wrong direction and part of it lands outside the window. Scheduling by contact time zone is table stakes, not sophistication.

State layers matter more each year. Some states shrink the window, some restrict days, and some count any marketing text toward per-day caps. The state-by-state details, alongside consent and record-keeping rules, are in the TCPA compliance guide.

Quiet hours interact with the rest of the TCPA rulebook rather than standing alone: a compliant send window does not repair a missing consent basis, and an in-window send to someone who opted out is still a violation. Not legal advice; run your program past counsel.

Updated August 10, 2026